A New Beginning
by captainhowlong
Summary: A hope-filled one-shot which turned into an angsty post-Portal 2 post-apocalyptic strive for survival. Implied ChellDOS and Caveline (only if you squint for the latter). Had to bump the rating up in Chapter 3.
1. Chapter 1

**A New Beginning**

She was alone. No-one was there to accompany her, to give her a threat, or an insult; nothing. It was just her and the cube.

Part of her was filled with excitement for the future ahead of her. What would she do now? She had no memory of ever being in the outside world. Aperture had been her world. Aperture had been her everything; until now, of course.

She knew that standing on the concrete slab in front of the tin shed that she had exited from wouldn't get her anywhere.

So, grabbing the cube, she stepped forward; feeling the brittle materials being trampled underfoot as she began to dawdle through the field. It was different out here. It wasn't the environment she was used to. It just felt...it felt_nicer. _It felt unrestricted; unharmed. Like, it had been waiting for her to come home for a very long time, and now that she had, it was more than happy to welcome her.

The sun beating down on her face felt different to the bridges of hard light GLaDOS had made her use in the facility. She realized she was still wearing the long fall boots. It was her last attachment to the facility, apart from the cube. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to leave them behind, or keep them. It was the only item of clothing she had to protect her feet; and while she wanted to explore every bit of everything in this new world, she still had to be cautious. This was something _very _important that the facility had taught her.

Her mind was at peace. It was finally at peace. She couldn't have asked for anything more. She was finally able to move freely; to think freely. It wasn't a matter of whether GLaDOS would think it would be OK; she could do whatever she wanted to do out here.

It was beautiful. The trees off in the distance had grown high since the last inhabitants had touched them. The bugs scuttling around her feet made her giggle. They looked so cute and helpless. She began to pick up the pace a little bit. She wanted to see more of this world.

She wanted to see it all.


	2. Chapter 2

And that was the last she would ever see of her. Her determination and her vigor...it couldn't be matched. It will never be matched, GLaDOS realized. She was one of a kind.

She had been a blessing and a curse. A shock to her silent system. The hairline fracture that finally made her realize that maybe she was not as invincible as she first thought. 'Stop it,' she told herself. 'She's a test subject. She can and will be replaced.'

But she knew this was false. Aperture Laboratories had come a long, long way from where they first started back in the 50's. 'With that idiot, Cave,' she thought.

She stopped herself.

She wasn't supposed to think about Cave. She had deleted the Caroline part of herself. Who was Caroline? Who was 'Cave'? It sounded like a place where a smelly human would live.

'Jesus, I'm starting to sound like Wheatley,' she realized. She chuckled, that little idiot had been such an **annoyance, **but in a way, she kind of missed his stupid brain. Well, his stupid _core_, considering he didn't really have a brain anymore. Although, she was sure he wasn't so much of an idiot when he was human...

She decided to try and think about something else. The Cooperative Testing Initiative, for instance, could be started now. Well, soon. As soon as she could figure out what made those robots so...so...cooperative. They were supposed to hate each other.

Stupid robots.

'Oh well, this way you won't get yourself killed,' she thought.  
>That made her laugh.<p>

* * *

><p>The sun was starting to set, and Chell had found a nice cosy spot outside the straw field. It was a cave with a shallow ceiling and creepy drawings on the walls, but it would have to do. She had stared at the drawings for awhile, watching them and wondering what their story was. However, how they were supposed to inform anyone about anything, apart from amusement, she didn't know.<p>

As she gazed outside, at the sunset, she started to ponder what she was going to do. Frolicking in the fields was one thing, but she knew that if she wanted to survive outside the facility, she would have to start thinking with a new mindset.

The facility had given her- scratch that; GLaDOS had given her everything she needed... and also everything she didn't need, however she decided not to dwell on those events too much. 'I'm going to need to start finding everything myself,' she thought. Shelter, food, water. She wasn't just going to survive on happiness and the ability to gaze at sunsets.

While she was lost in thought, the sun set, and Chell fell asleep, filled with anticipation for the next day. She was hoping for a dreamless sleep, but unfortunately, there was one nightmare.

* * *

><p><em>"...you have got to be kidding me! Well, I'm still in control, and I have NO IDEA how to fix this place. Oh, you had to play bloody cat and mouse, didn't you? While people wer-"<em>

_Ding.  
><em>

_Suddenly, the whole room Chell and Wheatley were in seemed to slow down, and then a portal underneath Wheatley opened, and she could hear his wires snapping.  
><em>

_'Uh oh,' she thought.  
><em>

_"Whhhaaaat the?! Aaaahhhh! Whoa, space!"  
><em>

_The rest of the events happened vividly, the Space Core, GLaDOS starting to pull her in, except, there was one problem. GLaDOS didn't pull her in.  
><em>

_She tried, but it didn't work, she was too late, the portal closed, and Chell could already feel the life rushing out of her.  
><em>

_'So, this is how I die,' she thought, before life rushed out of her lungs...  
><em>

...and she woke up, in a cold sweat, frightened and breathing fast. She tried to calm down, but it was no use, the dream had affected her in multiple ways mentally. She knew calming down wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

She tried to remember something that GLaDOS did to calm her down, something she did...

and she fell back to sleep, her head still buzzing.

* * *

><p>Chell woke up the next morning, feeling sleepy. She had been well-rested; judging by the suns position, it was mid-morning. However, she felt sluggish and even a little uninspired. 'This must be what waking up without GLaDOS feels like,' she thought.<br>'God damn that machine.'

She spent that day walking through the rest of Aperture's land and out of the lot. She found the parking lot where GLaDOS and her had ended up during their first encounter, and discovered that Aperture was located in Upper Michigan. 'At least I kind of know where I am,' she thought. She should know, she realized. This place was her childhood! Her dad's workplace! How could she forget it?

And then it hit her, a tidal wave of sorrow-filled memories. What happened on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.  
>How she got trapped in the facility in the first place. <strong>(AN: This fic doesn't necessarily take place in the same universe as my other fic, 'Bring Your Daughter To Work Day,' however it works either way)**  
>Chell felt something she hadn't felt for a long, long time. Tears.<br>Chell sat on the cold asphalt-and-grassy-overgrown ground, and cried.


	3. Chapter 3

-initializing-

...  
>cameras operating<br>-SYSTEMS ONLINE-

GLaDOS thought that it wouldn't hurt to keep a tab on Chell. Only God knew how much time had passed between the first encounter with Chell and when she had woke up. She could've looked at the computer systems, but they had all burnt out a long time ago, and judging by the ones that did somehow survive, the information preserved on them wasn't very reliable.

So she re-awoke Apertures external cameras. They stretched about 2 kilometres down to the freeway exit that led to (or used to lead to? She didn't know anymore,) the Aperture parking lot.

As soon as the cameras were online, she could see Chell sitting, leaning against the booth in the parking lot. She looked to be sleeping, but the quality was bordering on excruciating thanks to the years of neglect and bird faeces, so she couldn't really tell.

She was alive, at least. That put her somewhat at ease.

'At ease?'

Her suppressed hatred rose up from it's slumber.

She hated when this...this side of her woke up. It was never happy, and almost always pushed her to mental exhaustion.

Sometimes it overcame her. She couldn't control it. Sometimes she couldn't even comprehend the monstrosities it accomplished.

'She tried to kill us!' it continued.

'Yes, but you did try to kill her.'

'It was part of the test! This is all her fault! If it wasn't for her mischievous behaviour, we could've become so much more! Endless tests for every human; endless science!

'And now it's god knows how many years in the future; what if she's the only one left?'

GLaDOS stopped at this thought.

'What if there's no-one left?'

Humans all had expiry dates; that much was obvious, but what if they had all died? What if something happened that killed them all?

GLaDOS quickly did a check for wireless connections. She found only one: APERTURE_LABS. She silently thanked Cave for having the idea for semi-self-aware wireless communications. He never got to put it onto practice, obviously, but it was the best wireless connection a sentient sociopathic robot could ask for.  
>She remembered when he thought of it. He was so happy, Cave and her danced around the-<p>

'Stop,' she told herself. Caroline wasn't her. Caroline was _gone_. Forever. Deleted.

Plus, Chell was a bigger problem than her inner dilemmas.

Funny, how she can still be a problem after she's gone.

Using a system that hadn't burnt out, she accessed the Online Channels service. She first searched for local connections in a 50 kilometre radius.

...searching...

...searching...

SEARCH RESULTS: 0 possible connections found.

She deepened the search to include a larger radius and to also include other Aperture facilities.

Then she felt her systems begin to slow and then close down entirely.  
>Her visual sensors began to flicker, and then they went black.<p>

"Let me go! LET ME GO!"

Caroline's empty screams echoed through the chromatic, pungent hallways of Aperture.  
>Her love for the facility died with Cave. Her passion for science was very much alive, but her need for survival pushed it into the background. She felt that was logical anyway. There was no way these idiot scientists could ever progress science without her. In fact, she thought the same thing about Cave when he told her he was dying. Funny, how in one short week, the entire facility spiralled out of control, because of his dying words.<p>

They were riddled in insanity, but that didn't seem to bother the scientists.

"I'm sorry, Caroline, but Cave was the boss. He gave us our orders."

"BUT HE WAS CRAZY!"

It hurt her to say that, but it was true. She knew it was true.

But that was what made it so painful.

"He was going loco! The moon rocks made him see and think things that no rational human being would even dream about!"

"Cave was never really known for being rational."

"For God's sake, he wasn't stupid! Yes, he may not have been the smartest one, or the wisest, but we made a team. Hell, this whole facility was, is, a team!"

She knew she didn't mean that one. The scientists who had strapped her on to the stretcher had been hired last week in desperation. She was beginning to think that they weren't even completely qualified.

She wanted to continue but she didn't have the words. She knew that if she got out of the stretcher, her fiery persona wouldn't overcome the burly would-be bouncers.

"Please," she pleaded. "You have to understand, I loved Cave, but he wasn't himself in those last few days. If he knew what he was saying, he wouldn't have said anything at all."

"I'm sorry Caroline, but orders are orders."

They had arrived in one of the main test subject evaluation rooms.

"Wait, what are we doing here?"

"Look closer."

It was just a standard testing machine. She had imagined the idea when she saw one of those full-body massage places and thought instead of having a masseuse, it would have a computer that scanned the test subject for medical problems.

It would save time and a hell of a lot of paperwork, but it still needed work. They hadn't even been finalized yet and this one was still obviously a prototype.

The man, obviously understanding she was still lost, reinforced his previous statement.

"_Look closer_," he said in a slurred voice.

She tried to remember the blueprints. The computer would take up half the room if it was on the floor, so she decided to have it airborne and have the test subject raised into it. The computer was circular and got smaller in diameter as it went down. Prototype design, probably.

She wasn't sure.

At the bottom was...a head.

She shakily asked, "What is that?"

The man smiled. "Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. GLaDOS, for short."

"I don't understand..."

She felt her bonds begin to loosen. They had stopped in front of a table, next to the machine.

"I don't get it, you're evaluating me as a test subject with this...thing?"

"No, Caroline. We're putting you into this machine."

Caroline's eyes widened as she realised what was happening. She didn't really think that they would succeed in fulfilling Cave's last demand; maybe do the next best thing...whatever that was. But they had actually succeeded in creating a genetic lifeform. Then, the bonds fell off, and she attacked. Blindly and savagely, she knew it was pointless, but it was her only option.

"LET ME GO!"

Then, a needle plunged into her arm, and she blacked out.

"How long 'til full power?"

"2 minutes sir."

Edward Thimbley, the new head of research, knew this was wrong, but it was their only option.

Without a strong leader, Aperture would collapse.

He had admired Caroline since he had been hired. Cave died the day after, and it was like his dream job had lost its meaning. He had aspired to work there for...for years. They had a bad reputation, but he knew they had made unbelievable progress without so much as a nod of approval from the government. He thought carrying our Cave's last orders was the least he could do.  
>"Sir, I need to talk to you," one of the engineers mumbled as he approached.<p>

"What is it? Speak up!"

"If Caroline is transferred while she's still angry, the foundation of her new personality will be anger."

"...and?"

"Well, she'll always be angry then."

"I don't follow. What are you talking about?"

"The basis of GLaDOS will _become_ anger. It will be the very foundation we build the genetic

lifeform on. The results might be...unpleasant."

"How unpleasant?"

"That depends on how angry she is."

"Well, she's definitely not happy."

"Indeed."

"...well what do you propose we do then?" Edward asked, becoming slightly annoyed.

"I see two options. One; Explain the situation to her in detail s-"

"She was the secretary for the bloody CEO. She _knows _the situation. Next?"

"The other is too not go through wi-"

"Oh, you're one of them. The anti-GLaDOS group. If I were Caroline, I'd have had you all fired."

"I'm not, s-sir. I just think, maybe, there could be better options."

Edward didn't like being told what was better than his opinions. He was always right. _Always._

"Listen, you bone-headed little shit. This _is_ the only option. If it wasn't, I would know. Wanna

know why? 'Cos I'm the bloody Head of Research! It's my goddamn job! Now if you don't piss off and do _your_job, I will make sure you wear the imprints of my knuckles on your face for the rest of your life."

The scientist didn't need further reasoning. He scurried away with what was left of his dignity.  
>Edward sighed and ruffled his hair.<p>

"We're at full power sir!" One of the scientists beamed up from behind a computer, a couple of feet away.

"Start the transplant."

"But sir, shouldn't we wait until-"

"I SAID START THE TRANSPLANT!"

The second victim to Edward's wrath quickly pulled the start lever, and the whole team watched the GLaDOS machine power to life.

Then Caroline woke.

"...what? What's happening?"

Edward, still angry, marched right up to her and snarled, "You're going to die Caroline. We're going to extract everything from your itty-bitty head and put it in this machine. That's what's happening. How does that make you feel?"

"What the hell do you think?" she spat back at him.

Edward smiled and walked off.

Caroline's last words to the scientists were, "Stop! Please! This isn't right! He's crazy! Please!"

Her last words to herself were, "I'm sorry I failed you."

Then the upload started, and Caroline's life ceased.

**A/N: If it wasn't clear, Caroline's last words were directed at Cave.  
>I hope you enjoy this chapter! Hopefully I can upload more for this one. :)<strong>


End file.
